How exciting.  I've just been contacted by Schmap Amsterdam to advise me that one of my Amsterdam photos has been shortlisted for inclusion in the Amsterdam 2009 map.

The photo in question is one that I took for a blog entry on La Place.  I am well aware that I am no great shakes as a photographer and that many other people must be receiving similar e-mails but still.... Its given me a little buzz for the day.

We have the keys.  Number 75 is ours!

We spent Friday signing our lives away and then in IKEA.  Saturday receiving deliveries and more shopping for essentials.  Today we worked our tails off for 13 hours, painting, assembling, cleaning and working.

I'm so tired.

But I have taken photos and eventually I will find the time and energy to post them.

I am exhausted and exhilerated all at once.

Time for bed. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

We get the keys on Friday.

Really.

After all these months of waiting, we finally get the keys.  We first viewed Number Seventy Five on December 27th 2008.  We took our time and made an offer a couple of weeks later (ok, the lovely husband took his time, I was an absolute wreck of impatience).  After a week or so of to-ing and fro-ing over details we signed a commitment to buy.

And then we waited, and waited...

Part of our agreement was that we would not take posession of the house until mid-July.  It seemed so far away, but now we are here.  On Friday morning, at 9am we make the handover and our whole world will change.  We have never owned property before, jointly or separately.  We have never lived anywhere with a view to making it anything more than our "home for the moment".  I am scared, delighted and thrilled all at once.

There are some minor issues to resolve - expect many ranting posts on the intracacies of Dutch planning permission (*deep, deep breath*). 

Some of the furniture is still not arriving on time.  Yes, Chair Company I mean you.  You are right at the top of my list.  You are so far up my list you should be suffering from oxygen deprivation around about now.  Which is really the only remaining excuse for your continued show of staggering incompetence.  While I am starting to look forward to our weekly calls, if you call me on a Monday one more time to apologise for the delay (which I have yet to be given a reason for) and promise me that the chair will be here next week and still fail to deliver I will not be held responsible for my actions.  It is not acceptable that it takes 9 weeks to deliver a chair you claimed you had in stock, when I paid in full.  You have been warned...

Still, irritations aside.  I'm excited.  We are surrounded by boxes and stunned by how much clutter we need to get rid of but its all moving in the right direction.  The big furniture move is on the 18th, between now and then we will be ferrying small items, painting walls and getting a floor laid.  Posting will be sporadic but I will be back with a vengance and a helluva lot of photos as soon as I can.

Tiny streaks of white speed boat spray across the broad Hudson River as we flew over more land than I had ever flown over before. It was 1998 and I was on my way to America for the very first time.

Huge trucks, bandit style raced past us on the highway. Rows and rows of traffic and hot tarmac snaking off into the distance. Billboards loomed above me, smiling faces, whiter than white teeth and mile high telephone numbers. Call me, buy me.

I was in the South, Memphis Tennessee, living inside every movie I had seen growing up. Everything so familiar on screen, so alien in person.

I can't say I fell in love. Although, it left me with a strange yearning for Red Lobster's cheese and garlic biscuits.

That all changed in December 2004. I landed in Manhattan.

Big.
Skyscrapers.
Dizzy spinning in circles.
People.
So many people.
Shouldn't they be bursting into song randomly like the movies? Shouldn't I?
Steam from the streets.
Yellow taxis.
Cold breath exhaled in puffs of white.
Spinning and spinning so much to see.
Lights.
In Times Square,
On Broadway.
Painted across my upturned face.

I fell in love, and I fell hard.

By the time this posts I will be back in America. We are heading to the South (the Carolinas this time), to celebrate the milestone birthday of a beloved friend. On our way back to Amsterdam we will be spending a few days in Manhattan, me and the husband, in a city we both love but have never explored together.

I can't wait.

Happy Birthday to me!

My wonderful husband bought me a fabulous new camera for my birthday.